The Brooding Duke of Danforth

by Christine Merrill

  But then, people commented on everything else. It was hardly a surprise.

  There was more shouting from the hall. ‘If you were indisposed, I would assume your bed was the place for you, not a fainting couch in the dressing room.’

  The excuse sounded convincing enough to the ladies in the salon, who were whispering votes of sympathy even as they strained to hear her answers. At a difficult time of month, who among them did not occasionally move to a neighbouring room to avoid disturbing their husband’s sleep? And Lady Elmstead was declared vivacious rather than flirtatious. She was not the sort of woman that people accused of infidelity, though many could see why a husband such as hers might tempt her to stray.

  Rather than another comment from Elmstead, the next words spoken were from another man, quiet enough to be indistinguishable except for their moderate tone and the American cadence in the accent. Lord Comstock had gone to inform the couple that their argument could be heard and to suggest discretion in the future.

  The listeners sighed in disappointment, for it appeared that the day’s entertainment was about to end. But then their hostess entered, favoured them all with an excessively bright smile and shut the door behind her, blocking out her husband’s attempt to mediate the marital contretemps down the hall. ‘You have all been cooped up in this room for too long. I have a delightful way to pass the time. Who fancies a parlour game?’ Lady Comstock’s voice was far too loud for the crypt-like silence in the room and there was something in her direct gaze that informed them she expected nothing less than full participation.

  Her guests offered an unenthusiastic assent.

  She gave them another toothy smile to reinforce the fact that participation was mandatory. ‘Hide-and-seek.’ She clapped her hands together as if responding to non-existent approval from her guests. She scanned the room. ‘We must have more than one quarry. You, you, and you,’ she said, pointing to the two Williams sisters and the young gentleman at their side. ‘Off you go. Find hiding places. Separately, please,’ she added, wagging her finger. ‘The house is large. Feel free to use all of it. There is no need to pile into the same cupboard together and get into mischief. Now, the three of you, get as far away from me... I mean, as far from here as it is possible to go. I shall count to a hundred. Then we shall release the hounds.’

  When they did not go immediately, she shooed them towards the door. ‘Run along. Anywhere except the nursery, of course. The baby is sleeping. And avoid the library, as well. It is dusty. You will not like it.’

  When she had cleared them from the room, she began to count. As the numbers increased, the enthusiasm for the idea grew. By the time she had reached one hundred, the group had convinced themselves that it was a capital idea and was wondering why they had not thought of it sooner. They headed out, in singles and pairs, laughing and chatting, the fracas in the hall completely forgotten.

  The Countess stood in the doorway, waving them off. As Abby passed her, she murmured in a voice so low that it could barely be heard, ‘Off you go, the lot of you. If I had known that the company would be as bad as the weather, I’d have locked myself in the library and refused to send the invitations.’

  Abby stifled a smile and hurried past her. But before she cleared the doorway, the Countess spoke again, in a clear, commanding voice. ‘Miss Prescott. A word, please.’

  She turned back. ‘Your ladyship?’

  The Countess slipped past her and shut the door. Then she turned, leaning with her back to the panels as if she could hold her guests at bay. For a moment, she seemed to have forgotten that Abby was still there. She sighed, then smiled. ‘Gone at last. I shall have several hours of peace from this, if we are lucky.’

  Abby glanced out the window at the rain that prevented her escape, imagining the inn where she might have been staying without causing anyone bother. ‘I must say again that I am sorry to intrude. It appears that you are growing tired of having company and we have only added to your troubles.’

  The Countess waved away her apology. ‘You and your mother are a welcome diversion for all of us. I had planned activities to keep the party busy. Shooting, riding and croquet. But this blasted weather has trapped us like rats in a cage.’ She brightened. ‘Or rather, a maze. I should have suggested this days ago. Someone will invariably get lost in the house. With luck, they will not be missed until supper.’

  ‘I should probably join them,’ Abby said, glancing over the Countess’s shoulder at the closed door.

  ‘In time,’ her hostess replied. ‘First, I apologise for my rudeness, just now. I prefer a quiet life, alone in the library with my husband, my daughter and my books. But now that I am the wife of a peer, it is part of my job to be a gracious hostess. If Comstock had not turned out to be so utterly perfect, I would never have taken this on.’ She gave Abby a knowing smile. ‘Of course, you more than all of us understand the troubles you take on when you fall in love with a peer.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘With Danforth, my dear. You clearly adore him. But you jilted him because you were afraid that he might make you a laughing stock, as your father does your mother.’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she lied. The fact that it was true did not make it any less rude of the Countess to point it out.

  ‘People talk, of course. And when they do, you grow wan, your palms sweat on your wine glass, you touch your temple as if you are in pain and you refuse to eat, as if you fear that your meal will not stay in your stomach. You hide it well, of course. But all the same...’

  It was an apt list of the symptoms that plagued her when she was out in society. But that did not mean she had to admit to them.

  ‘There are probably guests that are talking about you right now,’ the Countess added.

  It had not been necessary to speak, for Abby could feel herself paling at the mention. ‘Then I had best join them to prevent it,’ she replied, glancing towards the door again.

  ‘Or you could find the Duke, as you want to,’ the Countess said, with a smile. ‘He is no more with Lenore today than he was last night. But you know that, don’t you?’ She tipped her head to the side and adjusted her spectacles, as if studying Abby. ‘There is nothing the least bit romantic about their relationship. You must have learned that by now. But I suspect you have trouble believing it.’ She smiled again. ‘You have nothing at all to worry about on that front. Lady Beverly will never be more to him than a friend.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ she said, unable to contain her doubts. The Countess was barely acquainted with her and Abby was far too polite to assume a friendship that had not been offered. But Lady Comstock was smiling at her as if they had known each other for years.

  The Countess seemed ready to speak. Then she changed her mind and touched a finger to her lips, as if trapping a secret. ‘There are some stories that it should not be my job to tell. I suspect you will figure it out on your own, given enough time. But if Danforth has not explained, you should simply ask Lady Beverly.’

  ‘I could never...’ There was no etiquette at all that covered questioning another woman about the honesty of the man they shared, especially when the lady had already offered her assurances. Still, there was something in the way the Countess was looking at her that hinted at secrets still not uncovered.

  Lady Comstock must have seen the truth in her eyes, for she sighed and stepped away from the door. ‘Very well, then. Have it your way and let the mystery remain. But for now, I recommend you use this time to play your own game of hide-and-seek. If you find Danforth, you will have at least some of your answers by supper.’

  Then, she stepped out of the way and opened the door. ‘If you need me, I will be in the library.’ She smiled again. ‘But I rather hope you do not need me. My book and my husband are waiting for me and I do not want to disappoint either of them.’

  * * *

  The Countess had made
it all sound so easy. All she had to do was ignore things that had bothered her for most of her life and trust blindly in people who had gone out of their way to behave in an untrustworthy manner. Lastly, she had to find the Duke and let him put her mind to rest.

  That might be the hardest thing of all. Though the Countess had spoken of his plans as if they were obvious, he had given no indication that he had wanted to see her, today. He had simply disappeared after breakfast, leaving shortly after Lenore, just as he had done on the previous evening. Did he assume that she would go to his room? If so, he was mistaken. Though she wanted to be with him, she was not nearly so desperate as to follow that impulse when there was a game in play that encouraged people to open doors without warning, trying to discover others.

  She went to her own bedroom door instead, half-hoping that she would find the Countess’s dog, ready to lead her to the place she was supposed to go. But now that she wanted him, the hallway was empty. She stood there for a moment, trying to imagine what he might have meant for her to do.

  The thing she feared most was that the answer might be: nothing. Perhaps he was in his room, reading a book. Maybe everything he’d said last night was a lie and he was with Lenore, just as everyone assumed. Or perhaps he was with one of the other guests. Perhaps he had gone on to the next willing female to do much the same thing he had done with her last night. Perhaps what they’d done had been insignificant to him and she was already forgotten.

  She balled her fists and pushed them against her temples, trying not to imagine another girl overcome by passion at his touch. He would not do that to her. More importantly, she could not believe that he could carry on another affair without hearing some whisper of gossip about it.

  That meant he was either reading in his room as he claimed, or waiting somewhere for her, assuming that she would know how to find him.

  Very well, then. She had always thought herself rather good at hide-and-seek. She was simply looking for a different person than everyone else who was playing. At least she need not worry that her behaviour appeared suspicious. As long as the game was in progress, she had the perfect excuse for being in places she should not.

  She walked slowly to the back wing, to the room where she had met him last night. The door was still unlocked, but when she opened it, the room was empty. She stood on the threshold for a moment, thinking. She doubted that the Duke of Danforth was the sort of person to hide under the bed. But then she had not expected him to be crawling around in the hall on his hands and knees, either.

  Cautiously, she lifted the edge of the coverlet and peeked beneath it. There was nothing but dust. Likewise there was no one in the cupboard or behind the curtains. Logic dictated that she had been wrong. But she had been led this far by something stronger than the rational mind. Even though the room seemed empty, she was sure she was in the right place.

  She looked about her again, then walked to the back wall. There was a small ring above the bedside table, too low to be a coat hook or candle holder. She ran her fingers along the papered panels until she found a vertical crack and felt a faint draught tickling her palm.

  A secret passage? She smiled. It was not Danforth’s house. Yet, in leading her here, it felt as if he had given her some sort of gift. It was as if some part of him understood how much she would enjoy the surprise of it and the chance to explore a space where the rest of the party could not or would not follow.

  She hooked her finger into the ring and the panelling pulled away to reveal a lit candle tied to a piece of red cord. When she took the taper down and waved the light around, it revealed a passageway running between the walls. The string appeared to be threaded into a series of staples in the lathe, disappearing into the darkness at the end of the candle’s reach.

  It was a guide of some sort. Had Danforth left it for her, or had it been there all along? And where might it go, if she followed it?

  She smiled again. There was no ‘if’ involved. She could not resist the temptation. She slipped the candle from the loop at the end and moved forward, letting the cord trail between her fingers as she went. She tried to imagine where it was taking her in relation to the room she had left, but it took only a turn or two before she was totally lost. A chill came over her as she realised that she was completely dependent on the trail that had been left for her. Should she lose track of the cord or drop her candle, she might never see daylight again.

  Hope returned as she came to a flight of stairs and a slight lessening of the total darkness in which she had been walking. The narrow corridor widened into a gloomy hallway that led to a pair of dusty glass doors, one of which stood open in what she hoped was welcome.

  She walked the last steps slowly. After the darkness of the upper passages, the light shining through the doorway was a welcome relief. But it had a strange, watery quality that was not precisely frightening, but otherworldly, as if she had been enchanted without noticing and wandered into the land of the fey.

  Then she felt the change in the air. What had seemed musty before, now smelled of greenery and damp earth. The space around her was no longer silent. She could hear the sound of rain on windows again, but much louder than it had been in the rest of the house, as if the drizzle fell on a hundred panes of glass, instead of just one or two.

  She smiled, for she knew what she would see, before she had even stepped over the threshold. The house had a conservatory, a glass house hidden far away from the rooms that the Comstocks had opened to their guests. It was clearly unused, for it lacked the warmth of a proper hothouse. But though there would be no strawberries or oranges from it, the more persistent plants had survived without care. A jungle of withered palms sprouted from the remains of broken pots. Ivy twined in and out of the panes of cracked glass. Now that she was closer to the damaged windows, she could smell the woodbine growing just outside and the fresh scent of the rain.

  She stared up for a moment and smiled. The storm had seemed oppressive when she had been in the drawing room with the other guests. But here, the combination of overgrown foliage and sunlight flickering through the water streaming down the transparent roof was wondrous.

  ‘You like it?’

  She walked forward, again, pushing aside an oversized fern to find a little clearing in the centre of the room. The leaves on the floor had been covered with a carriage blanket. And there sat a wicker hamper draped with a linen napkin. The Duke stood to one side, working the cork out of a bottle of wine. Two empty glasses waited on a bench next to him.

  ‘A picnic?’ she said, amazed.

  ‘I am sure, had the weather been better, we would have gone on one by now,’ he said.

  ‘I would not have been here, had there not been a storm,’ she reminded him.

  He shrugged, and the cork came free with a pop. ‘Then, perhaps we would have gone on one had we married.’ He glanced at her thoughtfully. ‘You are not opposed to them for some reason, are you?’

  ‘I do not think so,’ she said. ‘I have never been on one.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘My mother is of a mind that, when one has the money for silver and crystal, one should not have to eat on the ground.’ But when confronted with a member of the peerage so at ease, the prohibition seemed unnecessarily prim.

  He poured the wine and offered her a glass before sitting down on the blanket and stretching his legs out before him. ‘I have no intention of forgoing Comstock’s crystal, but the silver will not be needed. Eating without it is half the novelty of picnicking.’ He pulled a whole cold pheasant from under the cloth and began to dismember it with his fingers.

  ‘What else do you have?’ she asked, kneeling on the rug to peer into the basket.

  ‘Bread, cheese, teacakes. And grapes.’

  She helped herself to a cake and made herself comfortable on the floor beside him. ‘How ever did you manage this?’

  ‘I simply went down to the kitchen and
asked for it.’ He grinned. ‘They were sufficiently uncomfortable to have a duke hanging about the fire that they would have given me anything I asked for, just to get me to leave. They may be forced to put up with Comstock’s American egalitarianism, but I doubt such tolerance extends to me.’

  She smiled and shook her head. ‘I mean, how did you manage to get it all to the room? The passage was quite narrow. There was barely enough space for me. Come to that, how did you find the passage at all? It was quite well hidden.’

  ‘Comstock showed it to me,’ he said with a grin. ‘There are limits to the number of billiard games one can play before going completely mad. And as for this?’ He gestured to the food arranged on the blanket. ‘I made two trips. It was necessary to balance the basket on my head for part of the way. You’d have been in awe of my abilities, had you seen it.’

  It was obviously true for his normally perfect hair was mussed and there was a smudge of dust on the knee of his breeches. He could just as easily have commanded a team of footmen arrange it all for him. Instead, he had done it all himself, just to impress her.

  And it had worked. She felt a strange fluttering in her heart, quite different from the desire she was accustomed to feeling when she looked at him. It grew even stronger when she remembered the way he’d treated the maid and her broken necklace. She had thought him overly proud before they were to be married and distant in social situations. But when she’d seen him alone, he was not the least bit pretentious. It was not so very surprising that he might go to the kitchen himself, should he wish for something special to be prepared. ‘Do you behave this way when you are at home?’

  ‘In what way?’ he said, puzzled.

  ‘Doing for yourself. What do your servants think about your behaviour?’

  He laughed. ‘I suspect Gibbs would give notice immediately, should I try to tie my own cravat. I could not possibly perform to his standards. But I am not above conversing with the footmen and maids, and can find my way to the kitchen, should I wish a snack. Most of the staff have known me since I was a child,’ he said. ‘Since I was but sixteen when I inherited the title, many of them cannot quite believe that I am now a full-grown man.’